FREDERIC W. HA FFERTY PH.D.
PROFESSOR OF M EDICA L EDUCA TION M A YO CLINIC
Working With [and within]
Medicine’s Hidden Curriculum
February 12, 2014
Medical Education Grand Rounds
University of Virginia School of Medicine
Program in Professionalism and Ethics
DISCLOSURE
Relevant Financial Relationship(s)
None
Off Label Usage
None
Objective for Today
How might we reflect differently about the structure, process and content of
medical education?
Topics for Today
What is the HC? How do we think about it? How might we biopsy it?
Some Framing Principles
U.S. Congressman Tip O’Neil Speaker of the House 1978-1987
All politics is local
All solutions to the HC are particular
Joe’s Story
Bloom, Samuel W. 1988. Structure and Ideology in Medical Education: an Analysis of Resistance to Change. Journal of Health and Social Behavior 29 294-306.
Bloom, Samuel W. 1989. The Medical School as a Social Organization: The Sources of Resistance to Change. Medical Education 23 (3): 228-41.
Bloom, SW. 1995. Reform Without Change: Look Beyond the Curriculum. American Journal of Public Health 85 (7): 907-08.
Next Generation Curriculum
system-based learning experience
Integration
“Not all of what is taught during medical training is captured in course catalogs,
class syllabi, lecture, notes and handouts…. Indeed, a great deal of what is taught—and most of what is
learned—in medical school takes place not within formal course offerings but
within medicine’s ‘hidden curriculum.’”
Shibboleths
Shibboleth: a word, sound, or custom that a person unfamiliar with its significance may not pronounce or perform correctly relative to those who are familiar with it.
It is used to identify “outsiders” or those who do not
belong to a particular group. It particularly refers to features of language, and particularly to a word or phrase whose pronunciation identifies a speaker as belonging to a particular group.
ˈhaːvəd
Rachel Prentice: Bodies in Formation
“From first case presentations to learning when to operate and when not, surgical
internships, residencies, and fellowships are grueling tests of a trainee's stamina,
fortitude, and ability to navigate the social and organizational demands of
hierarchically organized hospital work, demands that often are poorly spelled out or
require setting and revising priorities.
There is no syllabus, but residents teach each other a great deal during lessons tacked onto
the end of a surgery or during informal "corridor talk," moments when unspoken social knowledge that never ends up on
lesson plans gets conveyed.”
The Formal versus
The Other-Than-Formal Aspects
Of Everyday Life
The Problem
The Problem
The Problem
The Problem
The Solution: Informal Norms
More Solutions
More Solutions
Upon Solutions
Upon Solutions
Upon Group Solutions
A Little Humor
The King – of Parking Space Savors
Definitions
One Definitional Framing
“…a set of influences that function at the level of organizational structure and culture and whose social and cultural influences relate to the context and environment in which learning takes place.”
David Hirsh: Unpublished Manuscript 2010
Another…
“the set of influences that function at the level of organisational structure and culture including, for example, implicit rules to survive the institution such as customs, rituals, and taken for granted aspects”
Lempp, H., & Seale, C. (2004). BMJ, 329, 770-773.
From Definitions to Metaphors
Metaphors have a way of holding the most truth in the least space. ~ Orson Card
Iceberg
The HC as Dark Matter
The Babe Direct Versus Indirect Vision
Key Points
Key Points
Teaching ≠ Learning
Key Points
Context Matters
Key Points
Systems Matter
Key Points
Relationships Interconnections
Interdependencies
Key Points
Educational Settings are:
Multidimensional Relational Dynamic Complex
And thus loaded with tensions and contradictions
Key Points
Altercastings
Reframings
Key Points
Heuristic Device
Key Points
It’s not always negative
Key Points
It’s better framed as a plural
[Curricula versus curriculum]
The Student as Detective
TO SUMMERIZE
Cognitive Neurosciences Linguistics
Physics Organizational Life
Index Card Exercise #1
How much of learning takes place within the
hidden curriculum relative to the formal?
Exercise #2 An Insider’s Guide
54%
70%
How Do We Tap Into/Biopsy the Hidden
Curriculum?
Analysis of narratives about student or faculty life Discourse analysis Surveys C3 [patient-centered care]
Social Network analysis
Looking at the HC from an Organizational Sciences Perspective
Another Approach
Naheed Dosani’s Top 10 HC List
10. YOU NEED TO HAVE CHOSEN YOUR RESIDENCY PROGRAM BY THE FIRST DAY OF MEDICAL SCHOOL.
8. THE BEST WAY TO GET AN ELECTIVE IS TO CIRCUMVENT THE
SYSTEM. 7. “DUDE, MEDICAL SCHOOL IS NOT ABOUT WHAT YOU KNOW. IT
IS TOTALLY ABOUT WHO YOU KNOW.” 6. DESPITE ALL THE LECTURES ABOUT SELF-CARE, YOU STILL
HAVE TO DO 1 IN 2 CALL TO MATCH TO A COMPETITIVE SPECIALTY.
4. THE BEST WAY TO IMPRESS A PRECEPTOR IS TO MASTER “THE
ART OF PIMPING.”
Social Network Analysis
Questions? Suggestions? Criticism?